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October 21, 2009

How Low Can They Go?

Target enters the book price war with Amazon and Walmart. The New York Times reports today that Target matched online prices with Walmart's $8.99 for the top 10 pre-ordered books, which prompted Walmart to lower its price to $8.98.

In the article, Barbara Kingsolver said, “Obviously, authors don’t own our physical books, just the words
inside, so we have no control over how they’re sold.” She added, “But we can ask our readers to consider how much they value their
local bookstores. If this price war is another way of using volume
discounts to put independent booksellers out of business, then every
thoughtful reader is going to lose in the long run.”